I was never one to relish speaking in front of people. I did speak at church from time to time as I was growing up but was always rather nervous. When I did career surveys in high school, that tried to match one’s interests and skills with college programs and a future career, teaching never came up, nor did any career that involved me talking in front of others! In fact, it wasn’t until my second year of graduate school at Ohio University, when I had to teach biology lab classes to earn my keep in the program that I had to talk in front of a couple dozen people for the first time.
The amazing thing is that despite my initial hesitation I grew to love it! In this Master’s program my focus was on doing biological research, especially as it related to a future career in wildlife biology. But my work with the students in the lab class, rather than the research, quickly became the highlight of my week. I enjoyed preparing an effective lecture, fielding questions, helping students through the labs, and editing procedures and notes to make the next class more effective.
After moving to Arizona and my first year of doctoral work in Zoology at ASU, in which I also taught lab classes, I started a field research program in the Henry Mountains of southern Utah. There was a bison (buffalo) herd that roamed through this area and I had identified a number of questions to be answered through this field study. But my partner from the US Fish and Wildlife Service, who had the needed 4-wheel drive vehicle to make this study work, was being held up by meetings in northern Utah. For a week I did what I could in my Toyota Tercel, driving where probably no Tercel had gone before! But after some harrowing navigation and the near loss of the vehicle off of the rutted mountain roads, I decided to return to Phoenix, to wait there until my federal partner could make it back to the Henry Mountains. I was also really missing my wife, to whom I’d been married for less than a year, and suddenly the thought of chasing bison around for the summer through rough terrain, instead of being with her, was just a little sad and disheartening.
My wife was very surprised but happy to see me back so soon – we didn’t think we’d reunite until mid-summer. The very next day I went to ASU to just see if there was something else out there for me and my future life, besides studying wildlife. I walked into ASU’s education department, told them of my background (I already had a B.A. and M.S.), and asked them what kind of teaching programs they had. The advisor seemed very excited to see me and sent me directly to the program director down the hall. I repeated my story, and her eyes lit up. She said “We have 21 students in a special program to put new science teachers (with an M.S. or Ph.D.) into our inner-city schools. This program is called the “Partner Project” and one student is missing a partner – and here you are! You can gain your teaching certificate this summer and then will teach fall semester in a high school while your partner works at Motorola. After winter break, you will take over his Motorola position while he teaches your spring semester classes. After the first year, it’s a matter of teaching high school during the school year, and working at Motorola in the summer.” And as an added bonus, the director told me I would receive an immediate loan of $3000, which would be forgiven if I teach high school science in Arizona for 3 years.
Well, I talked it over with my wife and friends, and the next thing I knew I took a leave of absence from the doctoral program. I then contacted my Fish and Wildlife partner (who still hadn’t made it back to southern Utah!) and started this new partner program. I added a wonderful new air conditioner to my car, courtesy of the partner project’s loan! Within weeks I was a student teacher in front of a full summer class of biology students, and by mid-August had been assigned 5 classes of earth science and chemistry at Carl Hayden High School in Phoenix.
The first day of class came, and I prepared some information on the board before the students arrived. But as the first students started wandering in, I noticed that my knees were actually knocking together. I thought that was only an expression about fear – but here were my bony knees expressing the fear and anxiety that was coursing through my body! Fortunately, by the time class started my knees and nerves had calmed down, and the class went amazingly well.
I have been a teacher now for 33 years – standing in front of students every day and loving it. But here I am in a storytelling class, and I feel like my knees would love to start that knocking again. Why is that? Perhaps because I have no overhead projector, PowerPoint slides, notes, or even a podium to hide behind. Perhaps it’s that video camera that has its eye on me while I speak. Perhaps it’s the intensely personal nature of this type of sharing – will the class relate to the feelings I’m trying to portray? Will they laugh at the funny parts, and feel empathy when I describe how things went wrong? Well, my first story has been told, and my knees stayed in their assigned realm during the whole thing. Perhaps the good vibes I was feeling from the class was the perfect antidote to knee knock!
(The top photo is Paul at his workstation, and the one below is a herd of bison taken the same year.)
Leave a Reply